Trudie Hall
BARNSTABLE – Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe announced today that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the first degree murder conviction of Quoizel Wilson (dob 5/30/78) for the killing of 23 year old Trudie Hall.
In May of 2015 a Barnstable County jury convicted Wilson on two separate theories of First Degree Murder; deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty as well as assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and improper disposal of a human body. At trial the jury heard evidence and testimony that Wilson repeatedly shot Ms. Hall, who was pregnant with his child at the time, and then after her death, discarded her body in a wooded area in Falmouth. Her body was not found for two years.
During the investigation, cell tower location information played a crucial role in tracking the defendant’s movements on the night Trudie disappeared. This data placed the defendant in proximity with Trudie’s phone and revealed that Trudie’s phone was still active and moving after the time of her death in the opinion of the Medical Examiner. Specifically, the phone was being used on the same route the defendant drove his trash truck. Her body was found within the vicinity of his trash route.
On appeal, the defendant alleged his cell site location information (CSLI) should have been suppressed because it was obtained prior to the Court’s new ruling that the police must obtain a search warrant for phone records. In response, the State Police obtained a warrant for the defendant’s CSLI based on an independent source. The Court found that “[t]he affidavit in support of the 2014 warrant sets out ample probable cause derived from wholly untainted facts known to police before the August 3, 2010 acquisition of the defendant’s CSLI.” This opinion has important precedential value in the ever-developing area of cellphone case law.
The case was investigated by members of the State Police Detective Unit assigned to the District Attorney’s Office and the Barnstable Police Department. The case was prosecuted by First Assistant District Attorney Michael Trudeau. The appeal was briefed and argued by Chief of Appeals Elizabeth Sweeney.
District Attorney O’Keefe said, “I hope this brings some peace of mind to Trudie’s mother. She has been a courageous woman throughout this terrible ordeal. I also want to commend the prosecution team for their hard work on a difficult case.”
